


the color of magic

by 2pork



Series: 5 things and you [4]
Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Fluff, I swear, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 01:58:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13090023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2pork/pseuds/2pork
Summary: Pink strands of hair interwoven amongst dark, framing the painful uncertainty on his face: familiar, but never directed at Woojin.(Park Woojin’s five-step tumble into a new territory beyond friendship.)





	the color of magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daquad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daquad/gifts).



> #100dayswithdaquad
> 
> For [Rea](http://archiveofourown.org/users/99izm/pseuds/99izm). Based loosely on [#053](https://twitter.com/99izm/status/938632916103454720) in her au list.

1.

For as long as Woojin has known Jihoon, it’s almost as if he doesn’t grow any older. Nothing has changed. Woojin is let into Jihoon’s house as usual by Jihoon’s mother and runs up to the bedroom to get an eyeful of the same dark hair spread out in little tufts on the bed. Later when Jihoon wakes up, the explosion of hair will be painstakingly styled into presentability, but Woojin is witness to the state of it now. Messy and natural, the way he has gotten to know Jihoon.

The same rosy cheeks, the same childish pout, and the same star-filled eyes. Jihoon hasn’t changed one bit. It has always been Woojin who starts them on mischief, hatching plans of vanishing the day’s study materials to delay the lessons (they turn up… eventually) or charming the tiles to peep out a note every time someone stepped on one (sparking a competition of who could dance out the most skillful rendition of Chopsticks—no one, as it turns out; their teacher had come in and put a stop to the noise before they could find out).

Jihoon is the one who gets them out of trouble, the one who studies the people around them, and somehow comes up with the just the right thing to say or do to get them to soften up. He wheedles, he whines, he glares from a distance whenever opportunity provides—it’s his favorite tactic, but not the most effective—he bats his lashes and blinks his huge sparkly eyes, and forgiveness and understanding fall into his wily fingers.

Woojin can barely believe it, looking at him now. When he’s resting like this, pillow displaced from under his head into his arms, lips slightly parted around soft breaths, it’s like staring at a child. Innocent and free of worries.

He sits on the edge of the bed and lets Jihoon have a few more minutes. An urge hits him from nowhere, to smooth the soft tufts of hair away from Jihoon’s face. For a second he thinks of entertaining it. There’s a few strands that bother him, tucked beneath Jihoon’s temple, that seem lighter than the rest of his hair.

Woojin looks at the bedroom window, shining the morning rays onto Jihoon’s back and casting his face into soft shadows. He dismisses the urge and the passing observation. It can wait until Jihoon wakes up.

 

2.

“No,” Jihoon says firmly, and probably with the most neutral expression that he can muster. Not that Woojin can tell, because he is currently on the opposite side of the door being denied entrance.

“If you think you can out-stubborn me, you’re wrong,” announces Woojin, banging a fist on the wooden surface once and then leaning most of his weight on it. “I am going to stay exactly where I am, so you can either jump out of the window or come out whenever you feel like it.”

“Go away! I don’t want to talk about it!”

“I do!”

“Don’t be a child, Woojin!”

“I’m not the one locking myself up in the bathroom. You know you’re depriving the male student body of six functioning urinals,” Woojin argues. “If anyone’s displaying a lack of maturity here, it’s you.”

“It’s both of you,” someone corrects in a stern tone, and Woojin slides his gaze apprehensively to where the student council president is flanked by the secretary and another upperclassman on either side.

Woojin shrinks back, shame sprouting like tiny buds in his consciousness. “Minhyun hyung… is it too late to say it’s really not what it looks like?” he hedges.

“You mean you’re not having a shouting match with Park Jihoon who has locked himself in the bathroom without explanation?” The incredulity is plain to see on Minhyun’s face.

“I was just about to get the explanation out of him…?”

“No you weren’t! Leave me alone!” Jihoon yells from the other side.

Woojin grinds his teeth in annoyance, tempted to break through the bathroom door by sheer force. It isn’t everyday that Jihoon denies him so tenaciously, and it’s really getting on his last nerve. “You dyed half your hair pink and you think I’m just going to let this go?! After you dye only half your hair pink? Are you trying to be an anime character or something? And why didn’t you tell me you were going to dye your hair?! Isn’t this the kind of thing best friends warn each other about so I could’ve watched you getting your hair bleached?”

An angry growl echoes into the hallway, and he can just imagine Jihoon banging his head against the wall. But he’s frustrated too, so Jihoon can suck it. “I didn’t dye my hair! It just ended up like that!”

“Hair doesn’t just end up like that!” Woojin retorts.

“Shut the fuck up. You grew a foot-long beard while we were doing a Lord of the Rings marathon just this Saturday. We’re doing our final presentation on the practical application of magic! My hair is literally the least mysterious thing in your life.”

Minhyun’s put-upon sigh stops the next argument from jumping out of Woojin’s mouth. “I have things to do, so I’ll leave you two to resolve this between yourselves,” he says, looking so distinctly disappointed that Woojin can almost feel his insides shrivelling up in response.

“Roger,” replies Woojin and watches their progress down the otherwise empty corridor. It’s really some luck that the three had managed to stumble upon them even though Jihoon had chosen the most unpopulated part of the school to be stubborn in.

“Is he gone?” comes filtering through the bathroom door, hesitant.

“Yeah.”

“I… I still don’t want to talk about it, Woojin-ah.”

Woojin purses his lips, unwilling to give the topic up, but there’s something in Jihoon’s tone that simmers down the urge to satisfy his curiosity. Jihoon tells him everything. Sometimes in excruciating detail that Woojin would rather not know about, and this is the first time that he is so adamantly silent about what’s bothering him. What makes this so different? “Will you tell me later?” Woojin asks, this new territory throwing him off-kilter. “It doesn’t have to be anytime soon. Whenever you’re ready?”

Several beats of silence pass and then Jihoon responds, “Okay. I promise.”

“Will you come out?” He waits for the soft yes before holding his palm above the door handle. When he twists his hand, the most satisfying click emanates from the lock and he tugs the door open to see Jihoon.

Pink strands of hair interwoven amongst dark, framing the painful uncertainty on his face: familiar, but never directed at Woojin. Things are shifting, and Woojin doesn’t know where it’s taking them.

 

3.

Jihoon had fallen in love with a girl in their class. She’s pretty. Tall, slim, long black hair, big dark eyes. She’s a little soft-spoken, seems friendly enough with the entire class, and—the clinching factor—a member of the magical herbs and drudgery circle (or something) where Jihoon disappears to every Wednesday while Woojin is in duelling club. So, in one of those quaint cliche ways, it makes sense for Jihoon to fall in love.

“Half. I’m halfway in love,” corrects Jihoon, whose hair is still half pink. It seems to be a predisposition stemming from his late father’s side of the family. “Not that it helps anything. It made my mom happy though. Nice to have a confirmation that my dad was still in love with her after all that time, I guess.”

Woojin ponders this. It does sound nice. “How does it feel to be on the other side of it?”

“Uncomfortable?” Jihoon says with a discomfited shrug. “I feel exposed. Like I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve, except it’s on my hair, and I just don’t like it.”

“More visible?”

The look Jihoon levels him with is bone-tired, so Woojin does what he always does to cheer up his very lucky best friend. (“How exactly am I very lucky?” Jihoon has the nerve to ask, to which Woojin thumps him on the arm saying, “You have me, don’t you?! How aren’t you the luckiest person in the universe?” “That’s an extreme upgrade.”) He plots the newest addition to their Mischief Agenda.

It goes like this:

“Ready your eyedrops, Jihoon, because we’re going to need them after this mess,” Woojin announces, draping himself over Jihoon’s back to ensure that he doesn’t get ignored for even a second.

And that’s about the only coherent part of the subsequent fiasco, which results in mass hysteria, their whole class in stitches (it takes ages to untangle whose shirt is stiched to whose), and Jihoon’s first love raising such a furious hell that her demure image is pretty much shot to pieces. She also, in her capacity as a member of the magical herbs and drudgery circle (or something), summons a trunkful of gardening supplies and flings them mercilessly in Woojin’s direction.

They don’t do any damage, thanks to the shield Jihoon draws up at the last minute, but it’s the thought that counts.

“Maybe she’s having a bad day,” Jihoon tries to reason, a little faint if only because he’s been laughing non-stop until that point.

Woojin raises his eyebrows at the attempt. “She tried to kill me.”

“We did go a bit far this time…”

“Jihoon-ah.” He squares his shoulders and stares Jihoon down, putting every ounce of severity into his next words: “She tried to fucking kill me.”

The next day, when Jihoon steps out of his house right as Woojin is bounding up to the door, Woojin kind of imagines that Jihoon’s hair is a little less pink.

And so it is the next day, and the day after that.

He’s a little relieved.

 

4.

It’s been six months and three days since Jihoon regained his original hair color, and Woojin doesn’t know why he’s been counting. Several times he has found found himself wanting to grab Jihoon by the arm and demand if that one experience has ruined him for love forever.

Fortunately, he has self-restraint. Not that he normally exercises self-restraint outside of duelling, but this is definitely a conundrum that requires it. And more than the usual amount of consideration that he would spend on people’s feelings, but this is Jihoon and he’s his best friend.

“You’re my best friend,” Woojin says apropos of nothing in the middle of their study session in the library.

Jihoon gives him a brief startled look, rolls his eyes, and sends the individual papers of Woojin’s homework flying across the bookshelves to give Woojin “something to do”. And then he steels himself for the incoming lecture on Using Spells in the Library that the Librarian is about to rain down on him.

While Woojin backs away from possibly the one person immune to Jihoon’s patented doe eyes, he notices the tiniest smug twitch of Jihoon’s lips and feels something significant slot into place.

So, he kind of lives for this. The minute hints of amusement in Jihoon’s expression when he thinks he has gotten away with something. The way his laughter sounds like it’s been surprised out of him. The way he lets Woojin monopolize his time when they’re together, and how he demands attention without a shred of shame.

The sad thing is Woojin has been living for it for years and only just noticed. The sadder thing is Jihoon’s hair has been the same shade of black for all the years they’ve known each other, and the one time it changed was for someone who isn’t Woojin. The saddest thing is the revelation that his self-restraint isn’t as strong as he thought it would be, because Woojin isn’t going to come a mediocre second to some person that Jihoon will forget after they graduate from this school.

And he’s going to do something about it.

Still under the Librarian’s relentless tirade, Jihoon glances in his direction and tilts his head as he tries to decipher Woojin’s expression. (Good luck to him. Woojin has no idea what he looks like right now either.)

 

5.

Woojin hems and haws about it for a little less than a week before deciding that classic displays of affection aren’t necessarily synonymous with cliche. And they’re obviously classic because they work, or at the very least produce some effect, allowing that the effects aren’t necessarily positive.

He’s not the meandering sort by nature. He likes to make minimalist plans with maximized effects. What’s the point of adding more factors that can possibly go wrong and send things spiralling out of his control?

Simple is best. Not always easy though, which is precisely what has Woojin skipping one duelling club session to crouch outside the greenhouse where Jihoon currently is. He’s nervous (that’s a first) and unconfident (his plans have a track record of going wrong) and very close to making a retreat, but he’s pretty committed to this. He’s also pretty committed to Jihoon regardless of how this turns out, so there’s that too.

“I can do this,” he mutters to himself like a mantra. “He’s my best friend, and there’s a hundred different ways this can go wrong that I haven’t planned for because Jihoon’s the other half of my brain, but I can do this. I can do this.”

“Do what?”

Woojin jumps to his feet in a flash. “Jihoon!”

Jihoon peeks at him, still mostly hidden by the frosted glass of the greenhouse door, looking perplexedly fond. “They told me to shoo away whoever’s loitering at the entrance, but it’s you. Don’t you have people you should be defeating with your ‘superior reflexes and advanced mastery of magic’?”

Even through the semi-opaque glass, Woojin can see the air quotes Jihoon is doing. “There are, but this is a little more urgent.”

“Oh?”

“It concerns my future.”

“Your… future?” Bafflement spreads across Jihoon’s face, most likely because Woojin is saying this all wrong, but fuck the system. He’s probably using that phrase wrong too. “Do you need me for it?”

Woojin screws up his courage. “You’re a big part of it, so yeah. Yeah, a bit of time would be nice.”

“Oh, now? Hold on, I’ll let them know I need to step out for a bit.” Half a minute later, Jihoon is shutting the door behind him and looking at Woojin expectantly. “What’s up?”

“Well, the sky and also I’ve been ridiculously in love with you for years, please hear me out,” comes bursting out of Woojin’s mouth unbidden, and he thinks, This is it. I’ve ruined it. He’s going to laugh and dismiss this as a joke and I’m gonna have to do something even more drastic to prove that I’m disastrously in love him which can only end in tears.

There’s a long silence into which Jihoon whispers, “Are you serious?”

“I wouldn’t joke about this,” Woojin answers, voice shaking under the immensity of the moment. “Will you hear me out?”

“Of course.” The fact that Jihoon looks just about as anxious and close to fainting as Woojin feels is gratifying.

“I am really, seriously, honestly, no joke, I’ve never been more serious about anything in my entire life, head over heels in love with you.” He swallows the lump forming in his throat and feels it settle in his gut, a conscious weight keeping him standing his ground in front of Jihoon. “I’m jealous of your first love for making your insane genetics activate before I even knew what it meant, and I really can’t stand here pretending you don’t mean the world to me. Because you do. You’re my better half, Jihoon-ah. And you might not ever be in love with me, but will you try?”

“I… okay?”

“I know this is a really big thing to spring on—okay?” Woojin frowns. That was way too easy. “Okay?”

Jihoon wrings his hands and averts his gaze to something very interesting far, far away. He stutters out what sounds like, “Um, since we’re on the topic of honesty, I’ve actually been charming my hair black for years,” but Woojin must have been hearing things because that can’t possibly be right.

“Say that again?”

“I’ve been charming my hair black for years,” Jihoon repeats, slow and careful, this time hesitantly seeking Woojin’s gaze. “Sometime during our friendship, my heart and my hair stopped thinking of you as just a friend... but I like you, Woojin. I like how we are together. The possibility that I could lose you for even a second scared me a lot, and that’s why I hid all of it.”

Woojin exhales, mind running a mile a minute. “I feel like I should be mad, but I’m just… so confused. And happy,” he adds. “But mostly confused. Your first love?”

“I applied the charm while half asleep and only noticed something was wrong when you started making a big deal out of it. So I just kind of rolled with the whole scenario?” To his favor, Jihoon makes an effort to look appropriately contrite for his deceit.

“I knew that love was too short-lived,” Woojin grumbles. “But I’m still too happy to care.” Jihoon loves him. Jihoon is ridiculously in love with him too. This is beyond the scope of Woojin’s plan. He’s at a loss, and at this point there’s only one thing that he wants. “Let me see?”

Pink blossoms from Jihoon’s scalp, unfolding down to the tips that tickle Jihoon’s ears and the nape of his neck, brushing delicately against the blooming color on his cheeks. It’s enchanting, and absolutely breathtaking, and everything Woojin hadn’t known he’d been waiting to see. Jihoon regards him, an edge of tension in his frame, expectant.

Woojin steps into his space the way he always does, and Jihoon looks up at him—a recent development—with baited breath. Woojin runs his fingers through Jihoon’s hair, leans in so close that they both go cross-eyed, and says, “Love looks good on you.”

“Everything looks good on me,” Jihoon retorts, both of them faltering into a stumped silence before breaking into nervous chuckles. He closes his eyes and presses their foreheads together. “Are we okay?”

“I’m ridiculously in love with you,” Woojin reminds him.

“I’m in love with you too.”

“Ridiculously?”

“Do I have to say it?” whines Jihoon, sliding down to hide his face in Woojin’s shoulder.

Woojin pulls away from him, drawing Jihoon up by cupping his softly blushing cheeks. “I think we’re more than okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 100th day to daquad! To more milestones, my darlings!
> 
> -
> 
> Let me know what you think in a comment!


End file.
